


137

by yeaka



Category: Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Genre: Ficlet, Fix-It, M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29033007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: After the epilogue.
Relationships: Ishmael/Queequeg (Moby Dick)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	137

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Moby Dick or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

It was on the deck of the _Rachel_ that I so found salvation, amidst a sea of still water about the boat but a dark storm in my chest. 

When the _Pequod_ sank, my dreams sank with her, not because of any true love for her captain or her mission but for the home she had become, and the despair of her death. I had left several ships before, but not like that, not knowing that all else were lost, and not to watch that loss with my own tear-struck eyes. It haunted me for days after its end, and I suspected it would long after that—weeks, months, and years into my life, if I were graced to live so long after Death’s hands came so very close to closing round my throat.

When Captain Gardiner and his fine men first hauled me aboard, I was a skeleton, little left to tell the tale, though tell it I did, until my voice was hoarse and my shaken hands were finally given ink and paper to write it all down. I should have gone ere after to their aid, not only in thanks but because that is what all able men must do at sea. But I did not, nor did they ask me. They let me wander the hull like a withered ghost, partaking of food and shelter I did not earn in the least. When I could finally face the coarse salt air again, they let me emerge, let me totter hollowly about them or lean over the side, so perilously close to toppling right over with every subtle wave. A storm might have been a blessing then: an excuse to join my ill-fated crew on the sand so far below. But the days after the _Pequod_ ’s death were some of the most beautiful I had ever seen and still have ever seen. The sky was of the purest blue, the water a crystal-clear reflection, the clouds soft white tufts the day I heard the cries. 

They lit up aft, then washed across the deck like a roaring wind, catching every sailor where they stood. They scrambled out with practiced vigilance and exuberance, nearly knocking me down where I stayed slump against a post. For a moment, I felt my chest beat, suggesting that I follow—but I now understood poor Pip before his final end and found I could not move.

The _Rachel_ moved for me. A man was spotted, they said, and the ship turned starboard for it, chasing an immobile body sprawled against a wooden flank. Immediately the line was cast, though disappointment sprung when it became clear that this stranded stranger was not one of the lost children the _Rachel_ ever boldly sought for. 

I had many to miss, but could not even fathom that it would be one of mine, for it would be too much when I was then proven wrong. It was enough to lose so many friends in one doomed adventure, friends and one more special—a man I had married, in a way, in his words first and then my heart, and whom I still thought of both daily and nightly. A moment could not pass without the stark black lines of intricate tattoos winding behind my eyes, clear as any canvas. I knew that should my feet ever touch land again, and the time and opportunity be given, I would draw that one man in all his glory and every vivid detail, and it would stay at the foremost of my notes as of chief importance. I would tell the whole story of him, of us, of how we met and all those sorry souls we came across, and there would be more of it that I could never put to pen but would always carry with me. The crew of the Rachel was a fine one, but none of them would ever be half so fine as my bold Queequeg.

It was in thinking this that I missed much of the action—the stilling of the sails and dropping of the lines and volunteers leaping overboard like Queequeg once did for Tashtego, for Daggoo. But I had to look once they were hauling their prize up onto the deck, because the sea chanced to pitch me then, and I stumbled towards the commotion just as their feet brushed the wooden planks. 

In all my life, I have never been so numb as I was then, not even when I was floating atop the _Pequod_ ’s carcass in my Queequeg’s coffin. For then I was still grappling to accept all that happened, and when I saw that survivor standing there, I had already accepted and mourned and couldn’t fathom that I had done so for no reason.

Queequeg stood there, or rather, slumped there, draped between two men that each had an arm around their shoulder, their hands clasping his back, holding him up. He was unusually pale, clammy, deathly thin with hollow cheeks, but still somehow as beautiful as he had always been, and the physical reaction in me was that of pure fire. My feet moved of their own accord, my body lurching forward. He looked up and caught my gaze in his, and it was not dead like mine had been, but _burning_ , like he had always known that we would meet again and was invigorated for it. 

Weak and shuddering, he shrugged off one of the men, reaching out his arm before I was even there to take it. Then I was, looping under it, slotting myself around him in the sailor’s place, ready to take more than his weight. It must have been an odd sight, the two of us: a sort of change of roles, I of only moderate stature and him, once a hulking beast of a man, now dependent on my little strength to stand. But he trusted me to hold him, and I did. I watched his lips twist into something of a smile and felt the pleasure in his eyes. 

There was no holding back. I could not help myself. Compelled by grief and love alike, I held him, closing in for a tight embrace so fierce that he groaned, and I lessened then but did not, could not let go. I did not even have it in me to fear for him, though he felt strangely brittle in my arms, for I had seen him recover from the brink of death before and knew he would do so again. Death could not touch my brave Queequeg. He was a divining force, a prince among men, that wrote his own fate like the rest of us could only dream. I felt someone clasp my shoulder but could barely register their presence: Queequeg had all of my attention.

“A fine thing, finding crew,” the captain muttered, bitter for his own son still missing. I knew that but had nothing left in me for sorrow. A pat, and he bid me, “Take him below, if you can, feed him and...” and other instructions that fell unheard—I was already moving. I would nurse him back, not out of the kinship all sailors feel for one another, but because this one sailor was _mine_ in particular.

Queequeg hobbled with me when I moved him. I had lost track of the days and did not know how long he had gone without food, without water, but felt a lump at his hip when he swayed into me. A glance down, and I saw a familiar wooden figure peaking out of one gaping pocket. I could almost laugh. Yojo had come through over my own God.

Below deck, I knew I would kiss Yojo’s little head and gives thanks in full. At the time I could only press my lips to Queequeg’s cheek and knew that I would rearrange us when I could and thank him most gratefully for returning to my side.


End file.
